Lana Lee runs her family's Chinese restaurant in Cleveland's Asia Village like nobody's business. When it comes to actual cooking, however, she's known to be about a step up from boiling rice. So Lana decides to go to culinary school on the sly--and prove that she has what it takes in the kitchen after all. But when course instructor Margo Chan turns up dead after class, Lana suddenly finds herself on the case, frying pan in hand. Since she was the...

"When Lana Lee's best friend, Megan Riley, asks her to help host a speed dating contest at Ho-Lee Noodle House, she doesn't see the harm in lending a hand. The night goes better than anticipated, and both Lana and Megan are beyond thrilled with the results. But before they can break out the champagne, Rina Su, fellow Asia Village shop owner and speed dating participant, calls to inform Lana that the date she's just matched with has been murdered....

"It was supposed to be a fancy, intimate dinner party by the pool. Instead, Lana Lee's first-ever catering event turns into full-course madness when a domestic worker is found dead. Is the party's host Donna Feng, the sweet-and-sour owner of the Asia Village shopping plaza where Ho-Lee is situated, somehow to blame? That's what Lana--whose plate is already plenty full with running the restaurant, pleasing her often-disapproving mother, and fretting...

Siobhán is now Garda O'Sullivan, and her five siblings couldn't be prouder. When the local priest summons her to the church cemetery, it seems there's a dead man in the graveyard-- above ground. He lies shot on a blanket of freshly fallen snow. Is he the American tourist in town searching for his Irish ancestor? Detective sergeant Macdara Flannery is dispatched from Dublin, and they learn the victim was from Dublin-- Ohio, that is. As long-buried...

"Lana Lee is a dutiful daughter, waiting tables at her family's Chinese restaurant even though she'd rather be doing just about anything else. Then, just when she has a chance for a "real" job, her parents take off to Taiwan, leaving Lana in charge. Surprising everyone--including herself--she turns out to be quite capable of running the place. Unfortunately, the newlyweds who just opened the souvenir store next door to Ho-Lee have turned up dead....

Told in two voices, Pen, whose dream of taking over her family's restaurant has been destroyed, and Xander, a new, undocumented, employee seeking his father, form a bond. As an aspiring pastry chef, Penelope Prado has always dreamed of opening her own pastelería next to her father's restaurant, Nacho's Tacos. But her traditional Mexican-American mom and dad have different plans. Xander Amaro Is a new hire at Nacho's. For him, the job is an opportunity...

"Autumn at the Automat" was also written for an anthology, LB's own In Sunlight or in Shadow, and won an Edgar Allan Poe award as Best Story of the Year. "Gym Rat" has never appeared in print; it was ePublished as part of a Center for Fiction project. While readers have suggested the protagonist might return for further appearances, LB is doubtful. Still, he's been mistaken before. "Resume Speed," the title novella, was published in hardcover (by...

Confirmed bachelor and ladies' man Ben Badwin finds himself fascinated by grubby and wholesome Sierra Murphy, whose devotion to her landscaping business masks both a hidden past and her growing feelings for Ben.

In the small coastal town of Hubbard, Oregon, Petie Coolbaugh and Rose Bundy, two women in their early thirties, make a living preparing soup for the town's new upscale café, all the while coping with the stresses of daily life.

After Froggy misbehaves at a fancy restaurant, his parents take him to a fast flies restaurant to celebrate their anniversary.